


Worthy of Flowers

by tyrsdayschild



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Discussion of Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrsdayschild/pseuds/tyrsdayschild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery, but today you’ve caught me and have demanded to come with me to make sure the "girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft” and I’m trying to figure out how to break it to you that we’re on our way to a graveyard" AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worthy of Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of [this](http://awful-aus.tumblr.com/post/116941769918/awful-au-196) post.

"Oh for God's sake," Simon swore. Jehan looked up from his book at his cousin's uncharacteristically blasphemous remark. "Some tramp is rummaging around the garden, picking my flowers!" he exclaimed, jabbing his finger against the window pane. The patch of green in front of Simon's townhouse was scarcely bigger than wheelbarrow- to call it a garden was more a testament to Simon's vanity regarding his flowers than an accurate label for the space. Jehan tucked the pencil stub he was annotating with into the volume of Chenier and set it on the arm of the chair, ambling over to the window. "I'm telling you, this town is going straight to the dogs," Simon grumbled, "Excuse me, I need to go throw this vagabond off my property."

"Actually," Jehan said, grabbing Simon's shoulder as he turned to leave, "I believe I know this particular vagabond. Why don't you let me speak with him?" Simon gave him a disgusted look.

"You really must find a better class of... _people_ , to associate with," Simon said, the inflection on people making it clear he could imagine a class of person less deserving of the title than those who stole flowers. Jehan hummed noncommittally as he tramped down the stairs, not bothering with his coat or cap.

"Hello there!" he called out as he opened the front door, "What brings you to the north?"

Startled, Marius Pontmercy dropped the flowers, practically jumping out of his skin.

"Now now," Jehan chided, gathering up the assortment of blossoms, "Having committed the crime, you shouldn't let your bounty go to waste!"

"I- Prouvaire- You live...?" Marius stammered, nervously accepting the flowers as Jehan pressed them back into his fumbling hands.

"My cousin lives here," Jehan said, waving a hand vaguely, "And his daughter is being christened on Saturday, and it was made abundantly clear to me I was _absolutely_ obligated to appear for the blessed event. Do you have family here as well?"

"My father..." Marius began, but trailed off, blinking hard and looking at some ill-defined point above Jehan's head.

"It's like that then," Jehan said sagely, patting Marius on the shoulder sympathetically. Jehan knew what it was like to have an unexplainable relationship with family. His amusement at the unlikely coincidence of running into an acquaintance shifted into a feeling of solidarity, and he embraced it. "Now, regarding the flowers," he began, deciding to change what was certainly an awkward topic. Marius cringed.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I just- Normally I buy a bouquet from the girl, but she wasn't there and I-"

"Think nothing of it," Jehan said, "What's done is done. What's important is that you and I have something in common." Marius gave a surprised blink, eyes staring unnervingly at Jehan's face. "We are both great appreciators of beauty," Jehan explained, gesturing to the flowers. "You've unerringly plucked the handsomest blossoms from my cousin's bushes."

"I'm _sorry_ ," Marius repeated, tucking his chin into the high collar of his coat, as if attempting to hide his face.

"It's not a crime to have exquisite taste," Jehan teased, "Though my cousin was about ready to thrash you for defacing his gardenias- they won first place in the garden show, you know." Marius made a high-pitched alarmed sound from the back of his throat. Jehan grasped Marius' arm firmly and tugged him back onto the public street, away from Simon's house. "So, let's you and I walk a while, so he doesn't think I'm doing a poor job resolving the situation, and you can tell me all about her."

"About who?" Marius asked, shifting his arm slightly so Jehan could properly link arms with him.

"Why the girl you're stealing flowers for!" Jehan teased, grinning cheekily at the younger man. Marius halted so suddenly he jerked Jehan's arm, eyes widening, cheeks flushing a very satisfying red. "Tell me," Jehan continued, "Is she prettier than than the bouquet?"

"No," Marius said, and Jehan laughed even harder.

"No? You dog! Committing theft for a girl you don't even think is pretty!" Jehan exclaimed.

"No!" Marius exclaimed, flustered, "No, I mean, there is no- They're not-" his stammering grew worse, to the point of incomprehensibility, and he seemed to give up, pressing his face back into his collar. Jehan realized guiltily the poor boy looked almost to the point of tears, and wondered if this was his first affair.

"Oh Marius, I'm only teasing, I'm sure she's absolutely lovely- and I really don't mind about the flowers, though Simon does, of course."

"No," Marius mumbled into his collar, a thoroughly nonsensical answer, but Jehan took it in stride.

"Where are we walking?" Jehan prompted, tugging on Marius's elbow, careful not to tug so hard as to tear the fraying fabric. Marius hesitated, but began to walk again, listing awkwardly as if unsure what to do with Jehan on his arm. This could only be good practice for him, Jehan decided, concerned for whatever poor girl Marius would be dragging around- and then worried perhaps some unscrupulous woman was taking advantage of his inexperience. He didn't know Marius very well, but he knew Courfeyrac often complained talking to him about women was like talking to a priest- or worse yet, a nun. Of course, Marius was close with Courfeyrac, so he surely knew, at least peripherally, something of gallantry- but his bright red face, his strange mannerisms... "You absolutely must introduce me to her," Jehan declared, feeling his own face blushing at his words, "I am curious as to the character of the Venus who has bewitched so solemn a man as you." Marius jerked Jehan's arm as he turned the corner suddenly. "You know, if you'd rather I not come, you can say so, and I promise to unhand you immediately- I won't be offended, I promise you."

"You're right," Marius said, "We are both- appreciators, and I would- I want to know you better, because I think, perhaps, you are the only friend who would understand this- you alone say Napoleon, after all... But I... I don't know how to say..."

"You really must come again to La Musain," Jehan said, beginning to suspect there was a lot Marius didn't know how to say. "You and Enjolras are so terribly alike- you can expound on your passions for paragraphs on end, but for anything else its single sentences and silence."

Marius acknowledged this observation with a hum, looking up to the sky. They were approaching a church. Were they meeting someone, Jehan wondered, as Marius walked around the apse. There was no one in the churchyard, and Jehan startled as Marius dropped suddenly to his knees, jerking his hand. He stared as Marius took off his hat, setting it beside him as he laid the flowers at the head of the grave, a wave of cold passing through him as he read the name on the simple black cross marking it: Colonel Baron Pontmercy.

"Your father," Jehan said with clarity, suddenly understanding what Marius's jumbled comments as they walked were meant to signify. Marius didn't respond, eyes shut, lips moving in a silent prayer. Jehan carefully knelt beside him. He didn't know quite who he was praying to- to Charon, to speed his crossing, to Persephone, to make his afterlife bearable, to the Buddha, that he could return with his eyes open and soul awake- but he felt a great swell of concern for this man he'd never met, that he could find peace, for his son's sake. Quietly, he stopped kneeling, arranging himself cross-legged on the grass beside Marius. "How long ago did he pass?" Jehan asked, after Marius had raised his head. Marius cleared his throat, his red-rimmed eyes fixed on the passing clouds.

"Last September," he answered.

"You're still in mourning", Jehan said, realizing Marius's single set of black clothes was more than just poverty or eccentricity.

"I'll always be in mourning," Marius murmured.

Marius and he were still "friends of a friend," and he realized how little that really told him about someone. Marius had always seemed like an overgrown gamin who had gotten lost in a law school, like an Enjolras abstracted past the point of idealism to vagary, flashes of passion and insight disappearing into silence and an absent gaze. Now, suddenly, it seemed to fit together- high titles on a pauper's grave, a man favored by the late emperor and stripped of everything for his loyalty, a son with nothing to inherit but the long gone glory of the dead and who had worn that glory like a vestment.

It was all _terribly_ romantic, and for a perverse moment Jehan envied the purity of his grief. He quickly shook the feeling off and laid his hand on Marius's trembling shoulder.

"Thank you for sharing this with me," he said.

"I didn't want to. Tell anyone, I mean. I haven't. But when you grabbed me I..." he shrugged a little and looked down from the sky, shyly meeting Jehan's eyes. "There was a field surgeon who treated my father several times- he told me I had the same eyes as my father. Dog's eyes. You have them too, I think."

"That's a queer compliment," Jehan said, curious but not rejecting the statement. Marius flushed.

"It means we've faced up to it," Marius said, "At least, that's what the doctor said. He was drunk, to be honest."

"Faced up to what?" Jehan asked. He was used to parsing the profundity of drunks. Marius shrugged.

"The grace of God, I suppose," Marius said. He turned more fully towards Jehan, looking at him with an intensity that made him miss his former dreaminess. "You understand, don't you? The grace of suffering?"

At this, Jehan hesitated. It was not at all how he would've phrased it, but...

"Courfeyrac always calls me melancholy," Jehan confided, "But I just- I suppose I do understand. Fire is beautiful because it burns, man's soul is saved with blood, and men like us..." he shrugged, and clapped Marius on the shoulder, careful not to worsen the tear along the seam, and removed his hand. "Well, it's no bad thing to die for something greater than yourself, is it?"

Marius turned that frighteningly focused gaze onto his knees, rocking a little as he smiled.

"I knew you had dog's eyes," he murmured. He reached out and rearranged some of the drooping blossoms, pushing them back together.

"Where are you sleeping?" asked Jehan. Marius pointed to the grave, having seemingly run out of words. The idea of sleeping on a tomb, under the stars, certainly had a flair that appealed to Jehan's core, but he was reasonable enough to realize that he was ill-dressed for such a venture, and that Marius's tattered overcoat offered little protection. He stood, dusting off his trousers. "Well! You've certainly allowed me to make an ass of myself!"

Marius made a distressed sound in the back of his throat, head jerking up to look at Jehan, shocked.

"Letting me go on about a girl when you knew perfectly well there wasn't one- shame on you, sir!" Jehan scolded, blushing a little at how ridiculous he sounded. "I absolutely insist you make it up to me!" He thrust out a hand, and Marius took it automatically. Jehan helped him to his feet. "You must come to dinner with me- my cousin Simon is painfully Methodist, you'd be doing me a favor by keeping me company. And the guest bed is big enough for two, or I can assure you the carpets are surprisingly comfortable, having lain on them many times myself. Really, Marius," he said, squeezing his hand for emphasis, "I insist. Come stay the night with me."

Marius cast his gaze to the grave.

"He died alone," he said, voice thick. "Don't I owe him?"

"You owe me," Jehan said firmly, and tugged his hand. "Please?"

Hesitantly, Marius stooped to pick up his hat, and let himself be led from the graveside.

"You won't always be in mourning," Jehan murmured. "You'll grow into the gaps death has left you, and one day you'll burst out of them, and find grace in the light of something greater than your past."

"And what's that?" Marius asked. "The revolution?" Jehan smiled.

"The future."

**Author's Note:**

> Cut exchange: "You're a pagan, aren't you?" "I'm a Protestant, if that's what you mean."


End file.
